Ok, so I was rewatching Step Up for the, like, quadrillionth time, and re-visiting snippets from Step Up Revolution, and I propose: Buddie AU in which, while Buck was going around the world trying to find himself, Eddie was with The Mob using dance as a form of protest and activism (bc rebel Eddie).
Now, it can either link back to cannon by twisting things around and having Eddie end up in the Army bc his parents find a young, recently widowed, vulnerable Shannon who's doing her best trying to take care of Christopher and they manipulate her into convincing Eddie that Chris is his child (he isn't) although she never told him that she was pregnant because she didn't want to put that burden on him (Eddie finds out about this, but he still doesn't abandon them because, well, this is Eddie we're talking about). This becomes relevant because instead of joining an underground fighting club, Eddie finds and joins another activist dance crew, then Buck finds out about it, cue the one-sided pinning and silent support (or whatever trope you want to attach to this variation of cannon).
OR, it can branch into a thousand other alternative realities, like...
...one in which Buck ends up learning to dance in one of his trips and becomes wildly passionate about it (although he sucks, he's more of an acrobatics kind of guy anyway [hence his signature backflip in the annual fire bids in cannon]), finds out about The Mob, decides to join and Eddie has to teach him how everything works, hence the very inevitable slow burn.
...one in which Buck ends up becoming a police officer because he finds out about how Maddie is being abused and he wants to protect her, and once he does they end up going to Miami (bc change of scenery) where he is assigned to the unit trying to stop The Mob, cue a WONDERFUL enemies-to-reluctant-allies (bc you CANNOT convince me of the fact that once Buck understood why The Mob was doing what they were doing he wouldn't do whatever was on his power to give them a hand, because, well, this is Buck we're talking about) to-friends-to-lovers.
There are things that remain the same, Christopher is still Eddie's son, no matter if he took him in, adopted him, is his actual biological father... Eddie and Buck are both pure of heart and dumb of ass... And at the end they always, always end up in love.
So yeah! Apparently I had many more ideas regarding this than I thought, but there they are!
















